A DESERVING MOMENT FOR ONE OF TEAM’S ALL-TIME GREATS

When your team has a 5-9 record, and the game is still in the third quarter, it’s awfully tough to get 10 of your teammates to sprint to the end zone just to give you a hug. But if we’ve learned anything about Antonio Gates over the past 10 seasons, it’s that he can do things on the football field that few else can.

Facing single coverage on second down, Gates blew past safety Eric Smith on a corner route in Jets territory Sunday. Then, after taking a 34-yard pass from Philip Rivers to the end zone, he passed Lance Alworth as well.

The score marked Gates’ 82nd touchdown reception with the Chargers, breaking the all-time franchise mark that Alworth held for 42 years. And while the tight end said he hadn’t been thinking about the record during the game, when he finally set it, he felt the significance in a New York minute.

“At the time, I knew I needed one more touchdown, but when you’re in the moment, you are just in the moment,” said Gates, whose Chargers beat the Jets 27-17. “Once I crossed the end zone, then it actually hit me. All the hard work through the week — I had dreamed that this would happen.”

And for a moment, Gates’ dream come true seemed to squelch San Diego’s nightmare of a season. Teammates flocked to him. Norv Turner embraced him. The Chargers’ sideline became the warmest spot in New Jersey. This, after all, wasn’t some single-game achievement that required one superhuman leap. It was a mountaintop reached after a decade’s worth of scaling.

Turner said after the game that putting quality back-to-back games together is difficult enough, never mind back-to-back seasons.

So to have performed at redwood heights for 10 years? That’s the mark of one of football’s rarest specimens.

Perhaps that’s why Rivers beamed so radiantly when discussing Gates during his postgame press conference. Not just because he’s the one who has been regularly tossing him TD passes for seven years, but because in Antonio, he sees a 255-pound version of himself.

“There is a common competitiveness that we both share and understand. It’s all about fighting to win the game. There are times where he wants the ball and he can get a little demonstrative, and there are times where I tell him this and that. But you wouldn’t know that happened when we get back to the locker room,” Rivers said. “(We have) a feel for one another. There are things that happen that aren’t by the book. You can’t necessarily say, ‘hey, I want you to do this on this.’ He does it because we both see it.”

But what about seeing the future?

Gates’ numbers have descended over the past two seasons with this one being his least productive yet. And while the 32-year-old said he came into the year feeling his healthiest since 2010, he still limped to this record — twice going four straight games sans a TD.